Italy and the European Union have stepped up their efforts to deepen ties with Africa, unveiling a bundle of agreements price €1.2 billion masking railway infrastructure, digital connectivity, and climate-resilient agriculture.
“We consider Africa is the continent the place our future is most at stake. Italians and Europeans alike are known as upon to make a distinction – and we will,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared, positioning the summit as a turning level for the long-touted however undeveloped Mattei Plan.
The offers had been introduced at a high-level occasion co-hosted by Meloni and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen. The initiative, launched by Meloni’s right-wing authorities in November 2023, goals to mobilise a minimum of €4 billion in Italian funding over the subsequent 5 to seven years.
It takes its title from Enrico Mattei, the founder and president of Italy’s state oil firm Eni, whose post-war method to power partnerships in Africa was framed as democratic, equitable, and never based mostly on the exploitation of native sources. Meloni’s authorities claims to be reviving that imaginative and prescient – providing a substitute for extractive fashions of growth.
EU rethinks African funding
Friday’s summit in Rome marked a big try to align the Mattei Plan with the EU’s broader International Gateway technique – Brussels’ €300 billion connectivity and growth agenda, with half earmarked for Africa.
Von der Leyen framed the initiative as a counterpoint to the current international retrenchment in support.
“We see that different international locations around the globe are slicing their funding. We expect that is mistaken. Attracting new funding to Africa is in each our curiosity. And in the present day’s occasion exhibits that our method is delivering,” she stated.
Among the many key agreements signed on the summit was help for the Lobito Hall, an 830-kilometer railway linking Angola and Zambia by way of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with deliberate extensions to the Tanzanian coast. The EU dedicated practically €1 billion to the challenge, together with €77 million in grants to Angola.
One other headline announcement was the growth of the Blue Raman undersea cable, designed to attach India to Europe through the Gulf and Djibouti. Von der Leyen revealed that, in partnership with Italy, the cable will now prolong to Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Meloni additionally launched a debt aid initiative in cooperation with the European Fee, which goals to transform the complete debt burden of the world’s least developed international locations over the subsequent decade.
“The plan foresees changing, over the subsequent ten years, the complete debt burden of the world’s least developed international locations, and slashing by 50% the debt owed by lower-middle-income nations,” she stated.
Outdated logic, new branding?
Regardless of the raft of bulletins, civil society teams stay sceptical.
Critics level to a scarcity of devoted funding and weak coordination with African companions. This was brazenly acknowledged by African Union Fee President Moussa Faki, who final 12 months criticised the dearth of early session with the international locations meant to profit.
In addition they level to the perceived imbalance within the plan’s priorities. Whereas framed as a partnership, the Mattei Plan has been seen by many as a device to advance Italian strategic pursuits – significantly in curbing migration, securing power provides, and boosting well being safety – quite than selling genuinely shared growth.
Environmental teams and African civil society networks have voiced concern that the plan prioritises fossil fuels – significantly gasoline and biofuels – over renewables.
The coalition Don’t Fuel Africa, representing over 80 African organizations, has denounced the plan as “neo-colonial” and exclusionary, citing a scarcity of session with native communities and a failure to help a simply power transition.
(cs, aw)
